Over the past few months we have covered how things have not been rosy for recruits at the National Youth Service (NYS). Recruits have been complaining about non-payment of their allowances.
All looting points to the Director General Matilda Pamela Aleyo Sakwa who was officially confirmed in September 2019 having been in heading the corrupt government agency in an acting capacity since June 2018.
In May 2019, a NYS recruit wrote to us accusing the management of diverting their monies to non-issue stuff. The poor recruits said they were sinking in debts because their money was not being credited into their bank accounts and that left them to borrow heavily from the mobile loan apps.
Hlalo Sir,
Kindly help us, let this message reach National Youth Service Headquarter in Nairobi.
NYS sent us to Friends College in Kaimosi; we are suffering at the hands of the school administrator and officers from Kisumu Mamboleo Unit.
The students are sent learning materials but it doesn’t reach them, the materials are stolen by the officers.
The trainees are supposed to get money for attachment, but when these money is sent to Kisumu, it doesn’t get to the students.
We are suffering and this is an urgent message to the director; please help us.
When one tries to raise the matter with the college administration, one is suspended or threatened that their contract will be terminated.
Since we open school, food has never been prepared. We know that the finance officers and Bursar are delaying with it so that they can add unnecessary expenses to it, so that when they pay us, the money will be less, and since one is suffering and hungry, they won’t say anything.
We are deep in debts from all mobile phone Apps, some of us have been put in CRB and therefore cannot borrow money anywhere else.
The allowances were truly missing because in August, another recruit wrote that the Director General and other senior managers were responsible. This claim was supported by some of their lecturers. Matilda Sakwa promises were empty. She promised but never fulfilled.
In the month of July, the Director General of NYS promised to pay many month’s allowances which was written in many newspaper and media channels. However, that was not the problem, the problem is that when parents saw that their sons and daughter’s would be paid their years debt’s they cut off their support towards them.
The cash they are supposed to receive according to the August complaint is Ksh2100 per month. This was directed thus by President Uhuru Kenyatta. However, there’s a figure of Ksh1500 set by a CS prior.
In September, having not received their allowances for over a year, another recruit wrote to us:
NYS personnel are subject to monthly allowances which for the last one year and month has not been effected.
The management at times claims that the recruits are not entitled despite the same being binded by their contracting documents.
Furthermore, the recruits are supposed to receive Attachment funds during that time which most often goes to those in authority.
There’s More
In the same month of September, a serviceman working at the NYS headquarters also confirmed that the issues raised by the recruits are true. He went on to state that the money owed to them has accumulated to over Ksh20k. Note that some said that the government owed them over Ksh30k.
“Kindly note that since our allowances were increased from 500 to 1500 in August 2018 by CS madam Sicily Kariuki, we’ve only received our monthly pay once that was in May’, he said
When the DG Matilda Sakwa was interviewed in August 2018, then acting as a Director General, she confessed that she had feared that the job she was about to take in June was not a great one.
Two former Director Generals, Nelson Githinji and Richard Ethan Ndubai had been fired from the position unceremoniously due to scandals.
The Anne Waiguru effect was not over. These deplorable Kenyans had discovered the NYS as a cash cow and weren’t letting it slip. They were milking it dry.
Ms. Sakwa said she had convinced herself to take the job after a lot of prayers. WTF?
Is she hiding behind religion, just like many Kenyan leaders who rob us blind but are forgiven by the Kenyan sheeple who believe anyone confessing the name of whatever god was a clean person who is ‘being fought unfairly by the media and bloggers?’
Get over it ma’am. The honeymoon is over and Kenyan youths recruited by NYS want action, they need care and to be treated like human beings.
A recent information, received in December 2019, shows that despite the many efforts to highlight the plight of the recruits, nothing has happened. The government seems broke when it comes to allowances for ‘small people’ but has money when it comes to senior people travelling to USA, Europe or Asia, even on Ksh2 million per hour private jet. Shame.
Most of the complaints we received and continue to received are from recruits who joined NYS in 2016. They have not received money up to date. Going by the Uhuru Kenyatta figure of Ksh2100, per month that translates to over Ksh75k; going by the CS figure of Ksh1500 per month, that translates to Ksh54K.
Since the Anne Waiguru NYS 1 heist, the recruits have suffered.
What is happening at NYS?
